diff --git a/cmake/dts.cmake b/cmake/dts.cmake
index a2203d5..81f7d4f 100644
--- a/cmake/dts.cmake
+++ b/cmake/dts.cmake
@@ -17,6 +17,13 @@
 # See the Devicetree user guide in the Zephyr documentation for details.
 set(GEN_DEFINES_SCRIPT          ${ZEPHYR_BASE}/scripts/dts/gen_defines.py)
 set(ZEPHYR_DTS                  ${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR}/zephyr.dts)
+# This contains the edtlib.EDT object created from zephyr.dts in Python's
+# pickle data marshalling format (https://docs.python.org/3/library/pickle.html)
+#
+# Its existence is an implementation detail used to speed up further
+# use of the devicetree by processes that run later on in the build,
+# and should not be made part of the documentation.
+set(EDT_PICKLE                  ${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR}/edt.pickle)
 set(DEVICETREE_UNFIXED_H        ${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR}/include/generated/devicetree_unfixed.h)
 set(DEVICETREE_UNFIXED_LEGACY_H ${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR}/include/generated/devicetree_legacy_unfixed.h)
 set(DTS_POST_CPP                ${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR}/${BOARD}.dts.pre.tmp)
@@ -206,6 +213,7 @@
   --bindings-dirs ${DTS_ROOT_BINDINGS}
   --header-out ${DEVICETREE_UNFIXED_H}
   --dts-out ${ZEPHYR_DTS} # As a debugging aid
+  --edt-pickle-out ${EDT_PICKLE}
   )
 
   #
diff --git a/scripts/dts/gen_defines.py b/scripts/dts/gen_defines.py
index 94f385a..be725e4 100755
--- a/scripts/dts/gen_defines.py
+++ b/scripts/dts/gen_defines.py
@@ -22,6 +22,7 @@
 from collections import defaultdict
 import os
 import pathlib
+import pickle
 import re
 import sys
 
@@ -67,6 +68,7 @@
         edt.compat2nodes[compat] = sorted(
             nodes, key=lambda node: 0 if node.status == "okay" else 1)
 
+    # Create the generated header.
     with open(args.header_out, "w", encoding="utf-8") as header_file:
         write_top_comment(edt)
 
@@ -92,6 +94,9 @@
         write_chosen(edt)
         write_global_compat_info(edt)
 
+    if args.edt_pickle_out:
+        write_pickled_edt(edt, args.edt_pickle_out)
+
 
 def node_z_path_id(node):
     # Return the node specific bit of the node's path identifier:
@@ -127,6 +132,8 @@
     parser.add_argument("--dts-out", required=True,
                         help="path to write merged DTS source code to (e.g. "
                              "as a debugging aid)")
+    parser.add_argument("--edt-pickle-out",
+                        help="path to write pickled edtlib.EDT object to")
 
     return parser.parse_args()
 
@@ -713,6 +720,21 @@
     return f'"{escape(s)}"'
 
 
+def write_pickled_edt(edt, out_file):
+    # Writes the edt object in pickle format to out_file.
+
+    with open(out_file, 'wb') as f:
+        # Pickle protocol version 4 is the default as of Python 3.8
+        # and was introduced in 3.4, so it is both available and
+        # recommended on all versions of Python that Zephyr supports
+        # (at time of writing, Python 3.6 was Zephyr's minimum
+        # version, and 3.8 the most recent CPython release).
+        #
+        # Using a common protocol version here will hopefully avoid
+        # reproducibility issues in different Python installations.
+        pickle.dump(edt, f, protocol=4)
+
+
 def err(s):
     raise Exception(s)